Renaissance to Rock

The piece is 400 years old. But the music is by British composer Dowland who was a contemporary of Shakespeare. Did they know each other? I was looking for a link, then found a piece called Lady Hunsdon’s alemain (or puffe). Apparently it was named puffe since this strenuous dance made the dancers puff! Since Lord Hunsdon was in charge of Shakespeare’s players I think there was a link. I wondered why I liked such disparate music as Status Quo with its 12 bar blues form and Renaissance Pavanes. Then I found in this excellent piece on Barbershop singing a link between 12 bar and the Quadrant Pavane

There is a sexier link between Shakespeare and Dowland. The Elisabethan court had employed Italian musicians to teach them the lute and one of the families was the Bassanos. It is now widely held that Emilia Lanier (nee Bassano) was the Dark Lady of the sonnets. The English lutenists in turn travelled all over Europe for instance Dowland went to Denmark. See this (the golden age chapter and the previous chapter):

Incidentally I was lucky enough to see Focus (Jan Akkerman’s group) about 1972. Brilliant! Akkermans cutting lead guitar and Van Leer’s organ, flute and vocals with his staring eyes and unkempt hair was like a latter day Beethoven. I bought the records but they sounded bland, needing mid-range boost to restore the ‘concert’ sound. The Dowland piece is on Akkermans solo album Tabernakel Talking of great guitarists I wondered what had happened to Ritchie Blackmore. Post Purple he founded Rainbow, now he ‘s got another band Blackmore’s Night who do medieval stuff as well: